The Bachman Books

Number 1241 was a split-level ranch house with a one-car garage beside it. There was a long front yard, now barren and waiting for snow-real snow-to cover it. The driveway was asphalt, freshly hot-topped the previous spring.

He went inside and heard the TV, the new Zenith cabinet model they had gotten in the summer. There was a motorized antenna on the roof which he had put up himself. She had not wanted that, because of what was supposed to happen, but he had insisted. If it could be mounted, he had reasoned, it could be dismounted when they moved. Bart, don't be silly. It's just extra expense . . . just extra work for you. But he had outlasted her, and finally she said she would 'humor' him. That's what she said on the rare occasions when he cared enough about something to force it through the sticky molasses of her arguments. All right, Bart. This time I'll 'humor' you.

At the moment she was watching Merv Griffin chat with a celebrity. The celebrity was Lorne Green, who was talking about his new police series, Griff. Lorne was telling Merv how much he loved doing the show. Soon a black singer (a negress songstress, he thought) who no one had ever heard of would come on and sing a song. 'I left My Heart in San Francisco,' perhaps.

'Hi, Mary,' he called.

'Hi, Bart.'

Mail on the table. He flipped through it. A letter to Mary from her slightly psycho sister in Baltimore. A Gulf credit card bill-thirty-eight dollars. A checking account statement: 49 debits, 9 credits, $954.47 balance. A good thing he had used American Express at the gun shop.

'The coffee's hot,' Mary called. 'Or did you want a drink?'

'Drink,' he said. 'I'll get it.'

Three other pieces of mail: An overdue notice from the library. Facing the Lions, by Tom Wicker. Wicker had spoken to a Rotary luncheon a month ago, and he was the best speaker they'd had in years.

A personal note from Stephan Ordner, one of the managerial bigwigs in Amroco, the corporation that now owned the Blue Ribbon almost outright. Ordner wanted him to drop by and discuss the Waterford deal-would Friday be okay, or was he planning to be away for Thanksgiving? If so, give a call. If not, bring Mary.

Carla always enjoyed the chance to see Mary and blah-blah and bullshit-bullshit, etc., et al.

And another letter from the highway department.

He stood looking down at it for along time in the gray afternoon light that fell through the windows, and then put all the mail on the sideboard. He made himself a scotch-rocks and took it into the living room.

Merv was still chatting with Lorne. The color on the new Zenith was more than good; it was nearly occult. He thought, if our ICBM's are as good as our color TV, there's going to be a hell of a big bang someday. Lorne's hair was silver, the most impossible shade of silver conceivable. Boy, I'll snatch you bald-headed, he thought, and chuckled. It had been one of his mother's favorite sayings. He could not say why the image of Lorne Green bald-headed was so amusing. A light attack of belated hysteria over the gun shop episode, maybe.

Mary looked up, a smile on her lips. 'A funny?'

'Nothing,' he said. 'Just my thinks.'

He sat down beside her and pecked her cheek. She was a tall woman, thirty-eight now, and at that crisis of looks where early prettiness is deciding what to be in middle age. Her skin was very good, her breasts small and not apt to sag much. She ate a lot, but her conveyor-belt metabolism kept her slim. She would not be apt to tremble at the thought of wearing a bathing suit on a public beach ten years from now, no matter how the gods decided to dispose of the rest of her case. It made him conscious of his own slight bay window. Hell, Freddy, every executive has a bay window. It's a success symbol, like a Delta 88. That's right, George. Watch the old ticker and the cancer-sticks and you'll see eighty yet.

'How did it go today?' she asked.

'Good. '

'Did you get out to the new plant in Waterford?'

'Not today.'

He hadn't been out to Waterford since late October. Ordner knew it-a little bird must have told him-and hence the note. The site of the new plant was a vacated textile mill, and the smart mick realtor handling the deal kept calling him. We have to close this thing out, the smart mick realtor kept telling him. You people aren't the only ones over in Westside with your fingers in the crack. I'm going as fast as I can, he told the smart mick realtor. You'll have to be patient.

'What about the place in Crescent?' she asked him. 'The brick house.'

'It's out of our reach,' he said. 'They're asking forty-eight thousand.'

'For that place?' she asked indignantly. 'Highway robbery!'

'It sure is.' He took a deep swallow of his drink. 'What did old Bea from Baltimore have to say?'

'The usual. She's into consciousness-raising group hydrotherapy now. Isn't that a sketch? Bart--

I 'It sure is,' he said quickly.

'Bart, we've got to get moving on this. January twentieth is coming, and we'll be out in the street.'

'I'm going as fast as I can,' he said. 'We just have to be patient.'

'That little Colonial on Union Street-'

'--is sold.' he finished, and drained his drink.

'Well that's what I mean,' she said, exasperated. 'That would have been perfectly fine for the two of us. With the money the city's allowing us for this house and lot, we could have been ahead.'